Let It Go, Girl

Posted by fxckfeelings on January 28, 2010

For some people, every conversation is an argument to be won or lost. Some of those people are smart enough to go to law school and make money off their bad habits, but the rest have to learn to contain their competitive conversational spirit and look at the bigger picture. When it comes to wars of words, losing the battle helps you do more than win, it calls a truce.
–Dr. Lastname

My husband gets on me a lot about being irritable and negative sometimes (like when I’m tired, which is often, because I work a very stressful job in sales). I’m not saying he’s 100% wrong, but he also knows that, as someone who spends all day behind a desk putting deals together, my instinct is to get agreement at the end of every conversation and find an argument to smooth away every objection or accusation. I’m a closer, so my job is to never let go until I wear ‘em down and get the sale, but he treats every argument I put forward as if I’m being obnoxious and not listening. My goal is to persuade him that I’m not all that irritable and understand that, when I am, I’ve got good reason.

The hard sell may work at work, but if it works at home, it’s because you married a wimp, so be glad you didn’t.

It’s sad that letting out your irritability at home gets you in trouble, especially since you might think that home is the one place you can let fly. What’s true for flatulence, alas, isn’t true for speech.

Certainly, kids feel that home is a free zone, and what makes home different from school or work is your comfort with behaving like a jerk and/or baby and not having to worry what the teacher or boss or your buddies think.

On the other hand, as co-manager of the partnership on which your home depends, you’ve got much more to lose at home than you do at work if anything damages that partnership.

True, it may be harder to keep your feelings in check at home, and to think before you speak, and no one can control their behavior all the time, but you’ve got every reason to try, and a kid you ain’t.

Think about a professional technique for responding to a client’s complaint about your irritability. After all, your boss wouldn’t ask you to respond because you’d probably try to argue the client out of it and irritate him/her all the more. The goal then isn’t to prove whether you were right or wrong, but to salvage the relationship, if possible, without absorbing unnecessary abuse.

Don’t aim for agreement or exoneration; trying too hard to get what you can’t have will prolong conflict and waste your time. Instead, listen respectfully, investigate the complaint, correct whatever you think is wrong, report back, and insist on moving on if disagreement lingers.

You may have good reason to feel that your husband is hurt about the wrong thing at the wrong time, or that he misunderstands what you mean. You may be right, but you still need to shut up.

The goal of the hard sell is to “close,” to get agreement now. The goal of relationship-building is respectful tolerance of disagreement; don’t show him that you’re right, just make the best of the fact that you’re irritable, he’s upset, and you need to restore respect. And at least have the courtesy to light a match.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a mission statement for home and work. “I know you feel that I’m offensively irritable and your feelings matter to me. I’ve thought hard and know I can be rough. I don’t mean to show disrespect but fatigue sometimes gets the better of me and I’ve always found it hard to control my tongue. I’ll try harder.”

I love my baby sister, but she will not shut up about wanting her boyfriend to ask her to marry her, and it doesn’t make any sense. Sure, they’ve been together for six years, are in their 30s, are good together, whatever, but my sister is a totally tough chick who taught herself Spanish by moving to rural Mexico and doing volunteer work and fixes her own car that she rebuilt herself…I just don’t get why she’s gone from being badass to such a needy little girl. Plus, I can only imagine what her boyfriend thinks since she’s not one to keep opinions to herself. My goal is to get my sister to snap out of it before she screws this up (or I smack her, whatever comes first).

There’s nothing wrong with your sister’s wishing to be married, or wanting to marry her boyfriend. Marriage happens to a lot of us, often with positive results.

Constantly expressing that wish as a yearning, however, is a good way for her to shut down her brain, compromise her integrity, and take more than her share of responsibility for her partnership.

While her Mexican adventures sound exciting, it doesn’t matter if she’s tough or a girly-girl—love makes a fool of us all.

The next time she starts to wistfully whine, ask her, yearnings aside, to consider what she wants her boyfriend for. Forget about the companionship, lust, love, mutual understanding, and all the other stuff you could get from a house pet instead.

While all those things feel good and are important, she needs to consider other potential deal-breakers. Does she want a guy who’s reliable, unlikely to leave, good at sharing work and money, good with kids, good with aging—the kind of things a dog can’t cover.

Her goal is not to get the guy she loves, it’s to get a guy she can still get along with 10 years from now after life gets tough and mean, so ask her whether his reluctance to get married bodes ill for the kind of commitment she wants.

This is not an issue of whether he loves her enough. It’s an issue of whether he has what it takes, because love won’t change him. If he doesn’t want to be, or can’t be, the kind of committed partner she wants, then she’s begging for heartbreak.

If she thinks he’s a good candidate, despite his foot-dragging, then she needs to decide what she wants to do with him and whether marriage matters. Then, if she decides to go forward, she needs to propose a future course without making his response a test of his love.

Pushing him towards doing something he’s not ready for will only push him away or, worse yet, bind her to a half-assed partnership. But being succinct, reasonable, and patient might allow for them to ride off together, one day, in holy matrimony or its equivalent, across the border and into the sunset.

STATEMENT:
Tell your sister to quit nagging and go with this statement instead: “I think we’re good partners and want the same kind of life. I can count on you and I think you know you can count on me. I’d like to go ahead and share responsibility for (getting a dog/buying a house/starting a business/having a kid) and I think being married would make it easier. The important thing, though, is not whether we’re married, but whether you want this kind of commitment as much as I do. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter whether we’re married or whether you love me to pieces, it won’t work. So let me know whether you want this kind of future and commitment as much as I do. I might not like your answer, but what matters most is that we both know where you stand.”